At the present time, many people are familiar with accessing information over a data network. For purposes of this discussion, it is helpful to consider two categories of network. Free or public data networks are networks, such as the Internet, where access to the network and to information publicly posted on the network is provided free of charge and generally free of subscription identifiers or login.
In contrast to free networks, for purposes of this discussion, are subscription or paid information services or networks. In subscription networks, users typically pay some type of periodic usage fee and may also pay for access to particular services or databases. Subscription networks include networks or data systems designed for the public at large, such as AOL™, CompuServe™, or Prodigy™. Subscription networks also include networks or data systems designed for particular professions or interest areas, such as Lexis™ and Westlaw™ in the legal field, Nexis™ for news stories, or Dialog™ for a range of documents including patents, technical publications, and business publications. Some paid information services allow limited searching and viewing of documents for free or after paying a subscription fee, but full access to documents, either for viewing, printing, or downloading, generally requires a fee. In many instances, the fee is a per document or per record charge, though systems have existed that included a per page or per line charge for performing certain actions, such as printing.
It should be understood that paid and free categories are not rigid, and both free and paid services can include some characteristics of the other.
A problem not yet fully addressed, particularly on free networks, is how to compensate copyright owners or information assemblers for access to information or documents that are placed on the free network, while allowing users meaningful access to the data.
A number of prior systems for allowing paid access to information have been developed, but each of these has had shortcomings, as discussed below.
One large document database that is accessible for free over the Internet is the IBM Intellectual Property Network, currently available at http://www.patents.ibm.com/. This service allow free searching in a number of patent databases and allows users, for free, to view a textual representation (generally in HTML format) of the front page of patents and in some case patent claims for free. A user can also view a graphical image of each patent page in a graphical format (generally TIFF) for free and can print or download the graphical scan of the page. However, this graphical format provides reduced usability for the user, because bit-mapped text in the TIFF file cannot be searched or selected. File sizes are generally also large and therefore slow to download. Text also cannot be copied from the graphical format. If a user wishes access to the full text of a patent in a text file format, the user pays a fee to download a version of the document. Various file formats, such as PDF, HTML, or TIFF are available for download, but accessing any of these formats requires paying a per-document fee. The service provides very limited paid access to portions of documents. For example, in one option, the user can download the front pages of up to six patents for a single fee. The service does not allow users to print or copy directly from a document at a different cost structure, but has just one paid access, file download. Once a file is downloaded, it is freely and repeatedly viewable or printable by the user and, so far as the software is concerned, it can be freely distributed and copied.
Services that require an initial or ongoing subscription fee are unattractive to consumers who may be one time or very occasional users of the database. Subscription services can, at times, be unattractive to information providers, because requiring subscriptions can reduce service utilization and revenues. Subscription services are, at times, unattractive to creators and publishers because it can be difficult to fairly compensate a particular document creator when a database may contain thousands of documents by thousands of different creators. Services that allow free access to a document after it is downloaded may be unattractive to publishers because once high-quality electronic content is made available, there is no technical restriction on a user from electronically republishing the content.
A number of different document formats are presently available that allow additional information, security features, or computer code to be included in a text/graphic document. The Microsoft Word™ doc document format, for example, can include macros, bookmark and cross-reference information, revision history information, two-password password protection, etc.
The Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF), and the PostScript™ layout language on which it is based, also provide mechanisms for including various procedures related to encryption and security. Adobe has also released some technology for managing and distributing secured documents using PDF. Adobe® PDF Merchant™ is server-based software that enables eBook and content providers to sell and distribute documents electronically with security. It is designed to integrate into existing eCommerce and transaction servers, making it easy for publishers, distributors, and retailers to encrypt volumes of Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files and sell them over the Web and provides mechanisms for Managing the distribution of electronic keys. Content owners can specify standard Acrobat permissions, including privileges for printing, changing the document, selecting text and graphics, and adding or changing annotations and form fields. Further information is available from http://www.adobe.com/products/pdfmerchant/main.html.
There exist some examples of easily accessible information tools such as definition and thesaurus look-ups. The NeXT operating system, for example, allowed users to click on words and thereby access definitions from a Merriam-Webster® dictionary. Guru-NET is a recent service using similar techniques to provide additional information to users based on indicated text. Many of these systems, such as Guru-NET, for example, fail when attempting to provide information tools access in encoded documents, such as PDF. These systems are not incorporated with systems for paid document access.
What is needed is an information accessing and distribution service that can allow users meaningful access to electronic data or information with a pricing arrangement attractive to both users of the system and information publishers or providers.